5 Things to Know About … The Latest LMA Innovation Report

Our latest Local Media Association Innovation report focuses on the most effective ways to promote newsletters and drive more sign ups.

Despite numerous new platforms and delivery methods, email still remains a leading distribution option for media companies. As new trends evolve, monetization is taking off with many using targeted ad placements within newsletters that are being directly sold or filled programmatically.

Our more than 20-page report looks at how media companies are driving readers to sign up for their newsletters and what techniques they are using to evolve their products.

Case studies profiling Patch, Entercom and Quartz’s newsletter strategies are featured in the report.

Here are five things you can learn in our report:

1:

Being specific in your newsletter
promotion is critical.

When you ask someone to sign up for a deal or promotion, providing them a specific deadline creates transparency and a sense of urgency for your audience. This same rule applies for your opt-in approach. Ensure the reader understands what they are subscribing to. Be specific.

2:

Subject lines should get the same kind of scrutiny that a newsroom might provide the story leading your website or the 10 p.m. news. Testing subject lines that drive the highest open rates will help you establish what works for your audience.

3:

While for some news organizations having dozens and dozens of newsletters is a good strategy, it isn’t necessarily needed to have a successful strategy. Data will tell you if you have too many and how to capitalize on the ones readers like the most.

4:

Narrative formats are becoming a trend to pay attention to. Narrative approaches allow a news organization to tell a story without simply just providing a list of headlines.

The beauty of the narrative approach is that outbound linking within the story can still drive traffic to your site and the experience you’re providing allows for greater value for potential advertisers who may want to target your email database.

5:

Have numerous ways to sign up for newsletters.

Options could include through your website’s navigation, promotional ads and inline on story pages. Because more of your users are coming through other avenues than your homepage, it’s vitally important you create outstanding promotions for your newsletters in areas like your story pages.